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Aphrodisiacs have a rich and often-told history — but what about their opposite? Throughout history, people have tried to find ways to suppress sexual desire. People have used methods ranging from saltpeter to cornflakes to modern-day chemical castration, with mixed success. More »
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There's an old urban legend about a state legislature that passed a law redefining pi so that it equaled 3. This story is a myth - but the true story that inspired it is actually even more ridiculous and bizarre. More »
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Skin-bound books may sound like weird artifacts that belong in Evil Dead movies or Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. But from the 1600s to 1800s, these suede-like tomes were less necromancy, more commemorative plate. And hell, converting yourself into a human moleskine upon kicking the bucket made for a heartfelt present. More »
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Can you find the charge of an electron in a spritz of oil? It seems like the subatomic world is too tiny ever to be meaningfully measured. But that's exactly what two scientists did in 1909. Find out how, with a box, a microsocope, a spritz of oil, and a sensitive voltage meter, people figured out the charge of an electron. More »
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Many an expedition has gone out into the Great Unknown seeking Adventure. And who knows? They may even have found it. More »
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Space, the final frontier...of warfare? Science fiction tales often center around the militarization of space, with lasers and torpedoes made of light racing past (and through) battleships and star destroyers. More »
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Robert Hooke discovered the cell, established experimentation as crucial to scientific research, and did pioneering work in optics, gravitation, paleontology, architecture, and more. Yet history dismissed and forgot him... all because he pissed off Isaac Newton, probably the most revered scientist who ever lived. More »
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Nowadays, finding out if you're pregnant is relatively easy — but it wasn't always that way. Over the centuries, people have come up with downright strange and sometimes revolting tests to figure out whether or not a person is knocked up. Some of them were useless, some required being a chemist in the bathroom, and some caused major ecological disasters. More »
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Johann Elert Bode is the author of Bode's Law, one of the most contentious laws in astronomy. It's a ridiculous idea which juggles numbers, seemingly for no reason, and it ends up revealing the spacing of the planets in the solar system. Or does it? More »
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We can see Venus pass in front of the sun once every one hundred and twenty years. Ever since it's been observed, a strange thing has been happening. Instead of appearing as a dark circle moving across the sun, Venus formed a tear drop shape that slowly oozed onto the solar disc. It took three hundred years for scientists to understand the Black Drop Effect. More »
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In 1896, the famed inventor, futurist, and elephant electrocution archivist made history yet again by recording the first kiss in cinema history. This clip, which featured a mustachioed fellow leering over Canadian actress Mae Irwin, was considered scandalous at the time, but Edison was no stranger to courting controversy. This was the man who pioneered cat boxing, after all. More »
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All across the globe, there are monuments and tourist attractions that transform our otherwise boring reality into a gleefully tumescent fantasia. Here are the world's most otherworldly phallic vacation destinations. More »
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If you're looking for the outline of the Alaska you know and love, you might as well give up now. This bizarre map, which appeared in the third volume of Diderot's Encyclopédie, dates all the way back to 1772 — and it's a total hodgepodge of misinformation. More »
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What do the great red spot of Jupiter and the impulses running along your nerves have in common? They're both thought to be examples of solitons — or solitary waves that behave much like particles. More »
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This problem of infinity was pondered by Georg Cantor. What he concluded started him down a road that wound through infamy, through respectability, and wound up in theology. Find out more than anyone ever cared to consider about the infinite. More »
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Ashley Michelle Williams has a fascinating article over at theGrio about a recent study that offers evidence that the harsh conditions of slavery subjected the African American population to strong evolutionary pressures. This could help explain what appear to be recent mutations in the genomes of African Americans. Williams writes: More »
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"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" This question has been posed in many situations. It has been pondered by great minds. It is the most unanswerable famous riddle of all time, and it has an answer. More »
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As far as the people of ancient Pompeii were concerned, dead bodies and trash were basically the same thing, at least in terms of where they ended up. And that isn't even the grossest place Pompeii put its trash. More »
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In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Inca Empire was the largest South America had ever known. Centered in Peru, it stretched across the Andes' mountain tops and down to the shoreline, incorporating lands from today's Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Peru - all connected by a vast highway system whose complexity rivaled any in the Old World. Rich in foodstuffs, textiles, gold, and coca, the Inca were masters of city building but nevertheless had no money. In fact, they had no marketplaces at all. More »
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World War II marked a time of great innovation, which was sometimes practical and sometimes loony. Those two kinds of innovation came together when great military minds decided that to keep an airplane from being spotted, they needed to paint it pink. Find out why a pink aircraft can get lost in the sky. More »
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Putting a good spin on things, verbally, can be a habit, a necessary business skill, or a vocation unto itself. Take a look at euphemism, who it hurts and who it benefits, and how different cultures, both internationally and intranationally, deploy it. More »
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Ever notice that 'eighty proof' liquor is only forty percent alcohol? Why do booze-makers feel the need to inflate their numbers like this? More »
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The two halves of the brain are connected through a bundle of fibers called the corpus callosum. There are times when that bundle of fibers is cut, either through injury or surgery. Often, these cuts result in little noticeable change. Other times, they force people into pitched battle against their other selves. More »
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In an effort to test the plasticity of the brain, scientists a decade ago decided to scramble a ferret's brain so that its eyes were hooked up to its auditory cortex. So clearly the ferret was blind, right? Wrong. Find out about the experiment that lead scientists to understand exactly how adaptable our brains can be. More »
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The origin of science fiction stories is well-known to both critics and the public: by consensus, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) was the first SF novel. But the origins of "science fiction" as a concept are neither well-known nor agreed-upon. The phrase "science fiction," meaning the genre of scientifically-oriented fantastic fiction, was popularized in 1929 by Hugo Gernsback. But "science fiction" had a 19th century predecessor: "scientific romance," a term used by H.G. Wells. However, as we'll see, science fiction started decades before that, as did many of the terms describing science fiction. More »
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One hundred thousand slaves tug multi-ton blocks across the desert. A complicated series of pulleys lifts each hand-cut stone into the perfect place. This is history's image of ancient Egyptian pyramid construction. More »
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There is a famous mathematical proof called The Jordan Curve Theorem. It's wrong. Camille Jordan came up with it at the end of the 19th century, and it bears his name, despite being inaccurate, because there is no justice in the world. There are plenty of proofs out there that are wrong, but this one is notable for proving something so very, very simple. Find out how hard it is to prove an obvious statement. More »
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Want to vacation like a scientific explorer would? We've put together the ultimate travel guide for people who want to journey back to the earliest ages of the Earth. This guide to North American prehistory will take you to valleys full of fossils, mountains carved by ice ages, and petrified forests that are millions of years old.

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People have been making graffiti since there was writing — everywhere we go we find messages lost in time. Some of these ancient writings give us priceless insight into lost civilizations. Other pieces, though, just give us big lumps of awesome. More »
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Everyone knows about The Mobius Strip, the loop of paper with a twist in the middle that has only one surface. Now imagine taking a disk and gluing its edge to the edge of the Mobius strip. This will give you a Boy Surface, and one of the weirdest planets conceivable. More »
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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy comes out in theaters today, injecting a little nostalgia into the techno-thriller spy genre. Although spycraft today involves computer hacking and surveillance drones, today we're paying homage to spy equipment from history. Some of it deserves respect for its ingenuity. Some just deserves a laugh. Check out ten ancient pieces of spy gear. More »
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Fiction has mined the idea of multiple personalities for centuries, but it was only in the 1970s that science followed suit. But many argue that "multiple personality disorder" is not a real psychological ailment. What exactly is the science behind this disorder, and does it even exist? How does it work for people who are not going for their Oscar? Find out about the most cinematic of mental problems. More »
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In the 1970s, a remarkable thing was done; a computer was used to solve a math problem. This, in and of itself, was not remarkable. The difference engine could do it. But this problem was the first one that would probably remain unsolved if it weren't for computers. Find out about the Four-Color Theorem, and why it needed to be turned over to the machines, below. More »
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In 1906 a Congolese Mbuti pygmy named Ota Benga was caged and put on display at the monkey house in New York's Bronx zoo to demonstrate "human evolution." In the 1840s, a boy with a small skull was sold to P.T. Barnum. There, he would be called Zip and made to wear a fur suit and scream at the audience in a show called "What Is It?" More »
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The ziggurat you're looking at is John Russell Pope's 1912 design for the Lincoln Memorial. This design and plans for other kooky alternate history monuments are currently on display at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Check out parallel universe versions of the Capitol, the White House, and other never-was monuments, like the Washington Dolphin Hotel. More »
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Antonio Stradivari made over a thousand violins in his long lifetime. They're considered the most perfect violins ever made, and the 650 surviving instruments are incredibly valuable. Now, thanks to modern technology, every budding violinist could soon own an authentic Stradivarius. More or less. More »
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Death doesn't need to stop you from doing all the things you enjoy, as long as the things you enjoy are pretty basic. Certain bodily functions continue for minutes, hours, days, and even weeks after death. You will not believe the kind of things a dead body will do with its now-copious amount of time. More »
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Pharaohs were far from the only ancient Egyptians to be mummified. An entire ancient industry grew up around supplying people with mummified pets to accompany them into the afterlife. Business was even big enough to drive entire species extinct. More »
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Nicolas Bourbaki spent much of the twentieth century publishing rigorous and revolutionary papers on mathematics. So why haven't you heard of him? Because he never existed. He was the name taken by a secret society of French mathematicians with some very odd rules. More »
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You love spaceship fights and zooming through futuristic cities like Coruscant. But you also love gladiator fights and seeing 1920s Atlantic City recreated for Boardwalk Empire. Why is that? Though historical fiction is supposedly based in facts about the past, the genre has a surprising amount in common with the speculative tales of science fiction. Here are ten major themes and ideas shared by HF and SF. More »
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